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Welcome to the Greater Vancouver Chapter of the Association for Change Management Professionals! We are dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of change management, while supporting our members in developing individual and organizational change capabilities.

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Event Recap

2016 ACMP Global Conference Recap

Our May meeting was dedicated to highlights from the 2016 ACMP Global Conference which included a broad range of topics from changing individual mindsets to changing organizational culture. Thank you to Suzanne Boyd (Noverra Consulting), Elisa Chavez (PHC and Cambiar Leadership), Jennifer Coleman (SAP), Erin Creak (UBC), Steve Doherty (Metacentric) and Diana Thema (Metagnosis Consulting) for presenting their insights from the conference and then leading participants in the World Café discussions that followed. Some of the topics, key learnings and resources that were shared included:

Use Storytelling to Promote Change
• Humans are hard-wired to naturally respond to storytelling.
• Emotions touch people and move them to action in a way that facts won’t
• Stories that are effective help people dream about what is possible with change• The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling by Steve Denning

Boldly Engage Sponsors
• Time, energy, money and reputation are the four main things that executives care about – when you’re engaging sponsors, focus on those things
• You don’t have to have all of the answers for your sponsors: ask more questions - Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling by Edgar Schein
• Contract with your sponsors from an assertive space; be specific in your asks
• Get rid of qualifying language – not “I think we need to” but “we need to”

Foster Communities of Sustainable Change
• Sustainable change comes from individuals having real ownership and engagement in the change process
• Create opportunities for stakeholders to identify WIIFM (“what’s in it for me?”) for themselves rather than spoon feeding it to them
• Deliberately unlock and leverage the power of both the formal and informal groups in your organization

Help People Embrace Change by Helping Them Work “Above the Line”
• Change can be experienced as a threat to someone’s ego or identity
• When people experience a threat to their ego or identity, they might naturally move to operating “below the line” (closed, defensive and committed to being right) – which will inhibit embracing change
• Help them move to operating “above the line” (open, curious, committed to learning)
• View video here

Train the Brain for Positivity:
• Help people through change by helping them create positivity habits
• Shawn Anchor’s The Happy Secret to Better Work TED Talk
• Shawn Anchor’s 5 Happiness Habits
o 3 Gratitudes: Identify 3 new things you’re grateful for each day
o The Doubler: Spend two minutes describing a meaningful experience from over the past 24 hours—double the meaning in your life
o Fun Fifteen: Add 15 minutes of fun, active cardio—create a cascade of success
o Meditation: Invest two minutes to train your brain to just watch your breath—undo negative effects of multitasking
o Conscious Act of Kindness: Take two minutes to write an email, thanking one person in your social support network—increase the greatest happiness predictor

Be a Brave and Calm Force in the World of Change
• In the absence of facts, people make up stories about change
• As change practitioners we can be brave and vulnerable to ask the hard questions and open up the conversation more to prompt people to “check” the stories they’ve made up about change (Brene Brown’s Power of Vulnerabiity TED Talk
• If we approach change calmly, we can help to diffuse the anxiety around us (anxiety is a group function and it is very contagious)
• Deliberately cultivating a calm state from which to lead takes practice (e.g. learn from a mentor who exhibits this quality, practice mindfulness, etc.)

Thanks again to all of our presenters and to the entire group of attendees for sharing their insights with us!